By William Madouk
South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF) said Bari community declined to respond to a proposed joint investigation team over a conflicting version of Mangalla incident.
On December 26, 2022, the SSPDF released a press statement noting that its officers had fought and driven out the National Salvation Front (NAS) forces in the Mankar Island area.
The Army also stated that it captured the NAS base with 1,000 individual trenches, neutralized five rebels, and recovered 30 rounds for 82 MM.
But the chairperson of Bari Community, Stephen Pitia Lako, lashed out at the allegations in a press statement issued Friday, December 29, 2022, describing Lul’s comments as “fabricated information.”
The army, then, proposed a joint fact-finding committee between SSDPF and the Bari community to go to the island where the clashes happen and clear the air on differing statements over the Mangalla clashes.
“We at the SSPDF headquarter are calling and demanding for a joint fact-finding mission and verification team to be sent to some of the islands where we discovered defensive trenches as well as show them the mortar shells we recovered,” Lul said five months ago.
However, when asked about the progress of the joint committee, Maj. Gen. Lul Ruai Koang, South Sudan People’s Defense Forces spokesperson disclosed that the Bari community dashed out of the probe.
“We reach out to them and say, Look, this is the version of events; if you are disputing it, let us go one step further by forming a joint investigation committee,” Lul told a reporter yesterday.
He added the committee would be “comprising of members from us [the army] and the Bari community, but they declined, and as a result, it went like that.”
The Bari Community is yet to comment on this statement.
How does it happen?
Last year, SSPDF released a press statement noting that its officers had fought and driven out the National Salvation Front (NAS) forces in the area.
That forced the Bari community to issue a condemnation letter, faulting the SSPDF forces for having killed innocent civilians in Mangalla Payam and also accusing Bilpam of labeling the citizens as members of the NAS force.
The community leader also called on President Salva Kiir to direct all the security organs to immediately “cease the unwarranted offensive operations against our innocent Bari people in all of Bari land.”
“We demand that the government withdraw its forces from the islands and return them to their barracks,” he said.
Lul stated that it is entirely and solely the responsibility of the chief of defense forces, other commanders, and his command to decide when and where to deploy forces in the country, based on the security threats.
Maj. Gen. Lul said the army did not generalize the whole Bari Community, but cited in the statement, the presence of NAS rebels on some islands between Juba and Mangala.
“We in the SSPDF general headquarters did not label the Bari Community as NAS rebels. In the statement I shared, we made it very clear that there are some Islands between Juba and Mangala that are being inhabited by NAS rebels,” he explained.